jbcarioca

That is a manufacturing belt story for certain. Thanks.

Lara21

You dress up these days you more than likely will have to strip totally naked to get through security.

OldGoat

This thread brought back another memory. In the mid-60s my parents took me to Islip Airport for an airshow. Along with getting my first ride in a light plane (a Mooney), I got a ride in an AA 727. AA flew the bird in to give the masses their first time flying experience. When the airplane landed and parked, anyone on the ramp -- which was everyone at the airshow -- could walk right up to it, and stand in line for the next flight. From the line they walked up the stairs into the aircraft (the back stairs, I think, but I could be wrong). The flight attendants gave an initial briefing and tried to calm passenger's troubled nerves, and the flight taxied out and took off. After a short flight, it landed again and the process repeated, for almost the entire day.

I don't remember "security" being present at all.

sjclynn

In the late '60s and early '70s my mother's aunt lived in Milwaukee and would occasionally visit relatives out west. The airline of choice was NWA and usually involved a plane change in Minneapolis. The aunt who was in her 80s had a few mobility issues and while mentally competent, could get confused by the connections. My parents lived about 10 minutes from the airport and would coordinate being there to meet her plane and see that she was comfortably transferred. Sometimes there was enough time for a snack or a bitye to eat. In any case, there personal connection that makes family so important.

Little, if any, of this is possible today.

StanSimmons

I was able to help an elderly friend of the family make her connection at DFW recently. She was flying AA coast to coast and changed gates from terminal A to terminal D. I had to ask an AA Ticket Agent for a gate pass, and tell her the passenger name and flight numbers. The gate pass got me thru security.

I met her at her gate, had the gate agent get a handicap cart to take us to Terminal D, and fed her lunch at the Reata Grill at D33... (AA didn't feed her anything on either of her 4+ hour flights. )

So it is still possible, but not easy, to help out.

Global_Hi_Flyer

Back in the days of "you have to turn electronics on to prove they work", I was traveling out of IAD with an RF radiation monitor that measured electric and magnetic fields in various frequency bands from DC to upper microwave.

Pre-TSA screener demanded to know what it was and have me prove it worked. I slapped an H-field probe on the machine and waved it around the x-ray machine. Of course, the needle pegged.... and the screener's eyes grew big as dinner plates when I told him that I had a radiation monitor and the field was very high. Now I did have it on the most sensitive scale, but.... (evil grin).

The contract screener invited me back to scan his entire workplace at some point in the future....

kevinsac

1960s and 1970s FRA ..... guards walking around the airport with machine guns in hand. Being taken into small curtained-off cubicles and given a severe pat-down that makes TSA's current pat-down seem like a first date between two 13-yo virgins! Get over it, people.

:-: Favorite fun memory. :-: CLT, at the old red brick terminal. The gates were just an opening in a sheet-metal lined walkway that had a sheet metal covering. Anytime we drove to CLT, and always for my birthday or when I had a good report card, my wish was to spend the day at the airport, watching the planes come and go. We walk out to the gates, and one year, one of the FAs on an arriving flight recognized my Father as a frequent flier, and she invited me on the plane during the layover to have some dessert which had been available to the pax on the incoming flight. I got hysterical, afraid that the plane would take off with me on it while my parents remained at the airport. I screamed and cried and screamed and cried ..... and she brought a plate of cake to me.

Then, we always had dinner in the upstairs restaurant. They had an organist who also sang. My parents gave me money to put in his tip jar and ask that he sing "How much is that puppy in the window?" Made me feel so important!

This was in the mid- to late-1960s.

motorguy

I was checking in and the person behind the counter asked 'has your bag been in your possession since you packed it?' I said 'except for when it was in the hotel check room'. She said 'I am going to ask you again, has your bag been in your possession since you packed it?' with a wink. I said 'yes'. So I flew that day, and my bad didn't blow up.

catocony

Here are some more:

Getting a box lunch in coach on most flights over an hour (mid-90s, US Air).

Getting the cold chicken plate - chicken breast with cold pasta salad - on almost all US Air flights, in first class, of an hour or more. And, complaining after getting it 4 times a week (mid/late 90s, US Air).

Leaving my office in Herndon at 2:00 PM and driving to Dulles, parking in the big lot right in front for $10 a day, and hitting the US Air gate in the main terminal by 2:15 PM for a 2:30 departure. (mid/late 90s).

Being anywhere close to IAD when the Concorde took off - I could never believe how a plane that small had engines that loud. (80s and 90s)

Carrying my Leatherman on every flight I ever took. (mid/late 90s).

Being surprised to see an "old" flight attendant still working - she must have been in her 40s (80s and early 90s)

Being surprised to see a male flight attendant (80s and early 90s).

Having the pre-TSA screeners asking you to make your pager "beep" or to turn on your newfangled laptop computer to make sure it wasn't a bomb (early/mid 90s)

Grabbing an American "bistro bag" for the on-board meal when boarding the plane. (mid 90s/early 00s).

ylwae

When I was a little kid, I went through security with a bottle of after shave in my pocket (I don't know why; I wasn't shaving then). The woman at security asked "Is that a bomb in your pocket?" Laughter all around. Nobody yelled "Bravo!" and the plane did not blow up in mid-air.

Fornebufox

In the late 70s my Renaissance music group flew to a gig in Kalamazoo. The director played something like a dozen wind instruments, basically wooden tubes assembled of 2-3 parts, each of which she carried separately in a sock closed with a knot (cheaper and less bulky than a custom fitted gun case, which many wind players used). We had no issues leaving Boston, but the Kalamazoo security demanded to inspect each piece. Our fearless leader insisted not only that the screener unknot each sock but also that he (or was it a she?) replace each part in its sock AND retie the knot. With something like thirty socks to unknot and retie we were there for a while.

zeikka

The hired security guard in MAD got mad at me for answering no to this question. I told her that I had to surrender my luggage at BCN to Iberia and I didn't know what they'd done with it since then.

sbrower

I am surprised that there is still anything to add (but I think these are original):

1. You could walk onto an empty airplane and look around. Even if it was parked at the maintenance base, at night, at LAX.

2. You could go down onto the tarmac at LAX. Just push button 3 on the elevator. I loved the smell of the jet fuel and standing behind a dumpster to avoid the jet blast.

3. When security was *first* moved from the gate to the individual flight (they had metal detectors like you see in a retail store), to the bottom of the escalator at LAX, I didn't think I should have to go through security, because I was working at the airport in the restaurant, not flying, so I felt there was no justification for waiver of 4th amendment rights. The head of security for HOST respected my views and allowed me to get a photo ID. At that time, if you had a photo id (including a bus boy at the restaurant) you didn't need to go through security, just walk around.

4. The tunnels between the terminals at LAX were open so connecting flights, between airlines, we much easier.

5. When I was 16 I flew back from summer camp on PSA. My "carry on luggage" was a beer keg (small one). It was empty, but no one even asked me about it.

N965VJ

Or how about the store in LGA just before the US gates (in the old terminal in the 90s) that not only sold Swiss Army Knives, they had one of those big mechanized knife displays with all the blades going in and out?



Did you have some 'splaining to do when you got home?



I remember the guards and the firearms, but not me or my parents ever getting genital gropes in the 70s. I got the treatment around four years ago from Günther, but he's now ended his ball-juggling act there.

eyecue

Security people that could not speak English.
GSC that would actually tell people to leave the CP.

Those are my two.